Paradigm Poor Customer Service

[j_garcia]

I've never seen a warranty from ANY company that covers abuse, even if accidental. SVS would not be considered the norm, and just because they are very generous about replacing items even in cases where it was operator error, does not mean that every manufacturer will or should do that. In most cases it says "free from manufacturing defects" and bottoming out the driver would definitely not be something that I'd call a defect unless it was the amp that failed and somehow caused it. They could be nice and replace the driver, but given the circumstances, there is nothing to suggest that they have to.

 

[MacManNM]

I've never seen a warranty from ANY company that covers abuse, even if accidental. SVS would not be considered the norm, and just because they are very generous about replacing items even in cases where it was operator error, does not mean that every manufacturer will or should do that. In most cases it says "free from manufacturing defects" and bottoming out the driver would definitely not be something that I'd call a defect unless it was the amp that failed and somehow caused it.

Well, if their product couldn't take it, they should have designed their amps with a limiter so you couldn't hurt the weak excuse for a driver they put in it. GM puts rev limiters on their cars. Same thing. Poor design, poor CS.

 

[j_garcia]

All manufacturers put rev limiters on their cars to protect the MORONS from themselves.

 

[Sheep]

Well, if their product couldn't take it, they should have designed their amps with a limiter so you couldn't hurt the weak excuse for a driver they put in it. GM puts rev limiters on their cars. Same thing. Poor design, poor CS.

Yeah, and all the GM cars are in perfect condition, CAUSE NO ONE BUYS THEM.

Our honda Civic and Pilot have rev limiters too...in nuetral and park.

Unreasonable? No. If you ran a company, would to give out free drivers to any idiot that blows it? If yes, you wouldn't last long unless your producst were damn good, and everyone was buying them. Paradigm gave him a new subwoofer, plus some dents. And then offered to have the dents fixed free of charge.

Paradigm has no way of knowing how these "dents" came to be, especially when you don't report them right away. Which is probly why they didn't send him a new unit.

SheepStar

 

[MacManNM]

Yeah, and all the GM cars are in perfect condition, CAUSE NO ONE BUYS THEM.

Our honda Civic and Pilot have rev limiters too...in nuetral and park.

Unreasonable? No. If you ran a company, would to give out free drivers to any idiot that blows it? If yes, you wouldn't last long unless your producst were damn good, and everyone was buying them. Paradigm gave him a new subwoofer, plus some dents. And then offered to have the dents fixed free of charge.

Paradigm has no way of knowing how these "dents" came to be, especially when you don't report them right away. Which is probly why they didn't send him a new unit.

SheepStar

That is the whole point, their products aren't "damn good" as you would say, if they were, they'd back them a little better.

 

[j_garcia]

GM doesn't replace your motor when you drive into 3ft of standing water, why should Paradigm replace your sub when you bottom it out?

 

[MacManNM]

GM doesn't replace your motor when you drive into 3ft of standing water, why should Paradigm replace your sub when you bottom it out?

If it's under warranty they will. They replaced my truck motor because I asked them to.

Bottom line is Paradigm is junk. So it sounds decent, but it's overpriced, made in china crap.

 

[silversurfer]

You make something for a customer, the customer breaks it, and then you should give a another one to the customer?

GM will not replace anything if you were negligent.

Bottom line is Paradigm is junk. So it sounds decent, but it's overpriced, made in china crap.

That's pretty subjective.

 

[MacManNM]

You make something for a customer, the customer breaks it, and then you should give a another one to the customer?

GM will not replace anything if you were negligent.

Yes they will. A happy consumer will tell 1 person about their dealings, an unhappy one will tell 10. That is how buisness works, most companies will bend over backwards to keep you coming back.

 

[Sheep]

If it's under warranty they will. They replaced my truck motor because I asked them to.

Bottom line is Paradigm is junk. So it sounds decent, but it's overpriced, made in china crap.

Derrr, Paradigm is made in Canada....

Gunge hey fa choY!

SheepStar

 

[MacManNM]

That's pretty subjective.

Someone had to throw some more fuel on this fire. I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, anyone interested?

Can anyone say gullible?

 

[ZoFo]

Abuse?

How is playing a sub at normal vollume "abuse"??? I will admit that War of the Worlds has some serious deep bass - my Hsu VTF-3 was dancing all over the place but it sure as hell did not blow a driver! So who is at fault here, Stephen Speilburg for mixing the audio of this movie with such low bass?

If their Sub cannot handle what Hollywood throws at it then they need to filter signals below the frequency they cannot handle, period! It's not like he was playing a 10 Hz Sine Wave on purpose to see what it would do; he was only watching a frigging movie and it blew!

How many of us who have read this post will think about it everytime we think about buying Paradigm? I know I will, nothing like poor customer support to ruin a future sale! Companies can no longer afford this kind of negative publicity in the Internet age; word from consumers now gets around much better than in the past.

PS - Honda DOES have a limiter on it just as my Toyota does; can't go past 115 MPH!

 

[MacManNM]

Derrr, Paradigm is made in Canada....

Gunge hey fa choY!

SheepStar

So that's the real problem then.

 

[krisg]

War of the Worlds, the DTS track in particular, is definitely one that could damage a sub. Just because you don't think you were pushing doesn't mean the sub wasn't operating outside it's capability.

I have never had any problems with Paradigm and their warranty, but it was also always handled by my dealer in the rare case that I even had an issue. A friend did something stupid and fried his tweeters. His speakers were out of warranty and Paradigm still replaced them free of charge.

Just because YOU had a bad experience with Paradigm and you are mad about it doesn't mean you can make assumptions about the rest of their gear. It does sound like you abused the sub, even if it was accidental, and that doesn't mean that Paradigm did something wrong.

If the amp failed and damaged the driver, that may be something else entirely, but I would think they would have found that while they were looking at it.

You sound pretty defensive. It appears from your post that you too have had trouble (more than once) with Paradigm, but they repaired yours. All I can go by is my experience and it has not been good

These are not assumption due to me being mad. These are observations from watching a poorly designed and expensive piece of gear fail.

The PS-1200 by price or description is supposed to be a fairly substantial sub. You should know this being the Paradigm cheerleader you sound to be.

So how quitely do you play War of The Worlds at your house?

How many people do you know that have had a sub fail during their viewing of it?

Can you please detail for me what I did to abuse the sub? I was sitting next it (within 2 feet) and still don't know. Pleas enlighten me.

 

[j_garcia]

They make all their own drivers and assemble them in Canada. Cabinets are made in China, I believe though, as are those of many companies these days.

9 times out of 10 when I see a thread that says "XXXXX movie just blew up my sub!!" it wasn't the MOVIE or the SUB, it was the OWNER who caused the problem. This one doesn't sound like that was the case, but we don't know all the facts - was the sub calibrated? How big is the room? He says "0" adjustment on the receiver, but if the sub is at 100% gain in a large room, that doesn't mean much. It's also an older, used sub...though it is still under warranty, that doesn't mean you can damage something and expect it to be replaced. A warranty isn't a license to be an idiot (not calling anyone here an idiot either).

I'm sure GM didn't replace a perfectly working motor with a new one just because you said "I want a new one and it's under warranty." If they did, then I can see why they are a junk bond and nearing bankrupcy.

I've seen at least one other person say the same thing regarding this movie, and it was an SVS sub. I'm sure there are more out there, and it isn't limited to this movie. I DO have a limiter on my sub at 14Hz, and I've played this movie LOUD; scary loud.

*edit* I'm not intending to defend Paradigm specifically, but I don't disagree with their decision. So you don't buy from them anymore, I can respect that, but that doesn't mean you should trash the brand because you had a bad experience. Try out some of their higher end stuff; the quality is there, however I WILL say, I almost never recommend Paradigm's subs unless it is their higher ones - the PW2200 and Servo15. I've owned quite a few Paradigm products, from most of the lines, and I was never disappointed with their quality. The very few, minor problems I had were quickly repaired/replaced by my dealer. If you'll notice, I no longer own any Paradigm products, but manufacturing quality and warranty are not the reasons for that.

 

[krisg]

They make all their own drivers and assemble them in Canada. Cabinets are made in China, I believe though, as are those of many companies these days.

9 times out of 10 when I see a thread that says "XXXXX movie just blew up my sub!!" it wasn't the MOVIE or the SUB, it was the OWNER who caused the problem. This one doesn't sound like that was the case, but we don't know all the facts - was the sub calibrated? How big is the room? He says "0" adjustment on the receiver, but if the sub is at 100% gain in a large room, that doesn't mean much. It's also an older, used sub...though it is still under warranty, that doesn't mean you can damage something and expect it to be replaced. A warranty isn't a license to be an idiot (not calling anyone here an idiot either).

I'm sure GM didn't replace a perfectly working motor with a new one just because you said "I want a new one and it's under warranty." If they did, then I can see why they are a junk bond and nearing bankrupcy.

I've seen at least one other person say the same thing regarding this movie, and it was an SVS sub. I'm sure there are more out there, and it isn't limited to this movie. I DO have a limiter on my sub at 14Hz, and I've played this movie LOUD; scary loud.

As mentioned in my first post - the subs input level was only half way up and the volume of the receiver was somewhere between -10 and -15. My room is 14 x 16. I was sitting abotu 2 feet from it.

I adjusted the sub when I first got it and purpossely set it to prevent such a problem. Even that couldn't save the lowly Paradigm. It is much to fragile and not to be used on large systems (that would be abuse) according to many of these posts.

Funny the guy who sold it to me never warned that I should not have the sub input above 1/4 or the volume level higher than -20. The manual didn't warn of this either.

Every thing I am hearing supports my point. Paradigms just don't cut it. If this is considered abuse in the world of Paradigm it is time to move on to something real.

 

[jeffsg4mac]

Hey guys, posting in between flights to Vegas. KrisG and I have built stuff together since the mid 1980's. We have blown our share of tweeters pushing things hard just to see what the stuff we built was capable of. In all our years of audio we have only blown a woofer larger than a 6 1/2in once and we knew exactly why. NAD 2200's bridged mono into a single 10 played at unholy levels. Since then we have mellowed. Believe me when I tell you that he did not abuse his sub.

 

[Sheep]

So that's the real problem then.

Spoken like a true american. Everyone else is broken, so lets fix em!

As for honda's rev limiter. It only pertains to RPM, A different limiter controls speed. You can bypass it with a new chip and tuning. My civic didn't want to pull much after 150KPH. Although we had stuff in the car, it wasn't impressive. The pilot on the other hand will slam you in your seat with acceleration at 120KPH.

SheepStar

 

[MacManNM]

Spoken like a true american. Everyone else is broken, so lets fix em!

As for honda's rev limiter. It only pertains to RPM, A different limiter controls speed. You can bypass it with a new chip and tuning. My civic didn't want to pull much after 150KPH. Although we had stuff in the car, it wasn't impressive. The pilot on the other hand will slam you in your seat with acceleration at 120KPH.

SheepStar

Little testy there Sheep? All over a warranty and some bridge.........wow.

 

[j_garcia]

Every thing I am hearing supports my point. Paradigms just don't cut it. If this is considered abuse in the world of Paradigm it is time to move on to something real.

When it comes to subs, yes you can do much better than Paradigm. Is there a reason why you guys aren't still building your own stuff?

Not sure about all cars, but for Hondas, above redline, there is a fuel cutoff which is intended to protect the engine as a whole until it drops back down to a reasonable RPM. The higher revving Hondas have very high piston speeds and the rev limiter is to help you remember when you are trying to scrape that last bit of oil off the cylinder wall that it's time to shift You gotta shift them at redline to get anything out of them (owned my share of high strung VTECs)

Blame Canada (had to)